Statement by TUV North Belfast candidate Ron McDowell:
“When two Nationalist Ministers – Sinn Fein’s Deirdre Hargey and the SDLP’s Nichola Mallon – launched legal action over a small loyalist bonfire in Tigers Bay they raised community tensions at a time when matters were already heated. The case never had any merit and flew in the face of the Ministerial Code which requires any cross-cutting matter to go before the Executive.
“But pan-nationalist aggression against this expression of Loyalist culture backfired spectacularly. They not only united unionism in North Belfast but exposed a lack of investment in Tigers Bay from the Ministers taking the action.
“Less welcome is the £22,583.50 bill which the public have been left to pay as a result of the legal action brought by Ministers Hargey and Mallon. To have run up £10,523.50 in solicitor fees and £11,799 in counsel’s fees over a small stack of pallets in the heart of a loyalist area is nothing short of shameful.
“I have no doubt that the community in Tigers Bay will find such sums eyewatering. There are precious few in working class North Belfast who have a fraction of that sum in their bank account yet here Nationalist Ministers have squandered the money of taxpayers – including many who enjoyed the loyalist bonfires this summer. This was not money for Nationalists to use in a failed attempt to suppress cultural expression they did not like. It was public money.
“If the Ministers have any decency or regard for public money they would ensure that this money is repaid to the public either from their own pockets or that of their respective parties.”